Wicki-Hayden note layout

The Wicki-Hayden note layout is a musical keyboard layout that differs from the traditional layout.

The Wicki-Hayden (W/H) layout was initially conceived by Kaspar Wicki for the bandoneon and patented in 1896. It was independently conceived and refined by Brian Hayden, a concertina player, who patented it again a century later, in 1986. This layout is popular with concertina (an instrument played with the hands strapped to it, resembling a small accordion) players, since it places all the notes of the major scale under the fingers without requiring hand movement.

Jim Plamondon later discovered the W/H layout while searching for an optimal keyboard layout to use in the electronic musical instrument he was designing. He publicized its benefits widely through the web and through his company Thumtronics (which failed to achieve commercial success). He hoped to use the web and "word-of-finger" contacts to reach people interested in novel music instruments. As he envisioned, novel music instrument hobbyists have become interested in the features and advantages of Wicki-Hayden instruments and have begun to make their own, at first manually, and then by adapting commercially available instruments.

The traditional keyboard has 7 white keys (CDEFGAB) that repeat with each octave. These can be grouped into the first 3 keys (CDE) and the following 4 keys (FGAB). The critical change is to stack the 4 white notes (FGAB) just above the 3 notes (CDE), as shown in the diagrams to the right and left. This seemingly minor change in placement has surprising and profound consequences in the resulting note layout.

In western music’s preeminent major scale, the important notes are the white keys on a piano. However, their linear layout presents ergonomic challenges:

The W/H layout avoids these problems:

To summarize, the Wicki/Hayden layout moves the keys to where they are more reachable, useful and less prone to mistakes. The same fingering on both hands is able.

Some studies and the consonance/dissonance diagram to the right indicate there may be strong parallels to the way the brain hears music.

The Wicki/Hayden system strongly encourages consonant play within a given key signature, which paradoxically may make players less innovative.

A proposed problem with the Wicki/Hayden system is that the keys are not in chromatic order. It is argued from this that playing impromptu ornamental flourishes and accidental passing tones are less intuitive than on chromatically ordered key arrangements. In the common practice of much modern western music, especially improvised music like jazz, almost every chromatic note is commonly used within any key signature. It initially was argued that the less-intuitive ergonomic access to chromatic intervals would prove to be a detriment to performing musical styles that make heavier use of dissonance. However, experimental players of the layout report the isomorphism provides a firmer framework to choose desired sounds and effects.

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